Morien

Well yes and no. It depends what we are talking about here as Paganism. Do we just have Celts or Greco-Romans, too? In the former, you still had some important places like Anglesey and the forest of the Carnutes. For the latter, you had important temples, oracle sites and things like Eleusinian Mysteries, which while not a pilgrimage as such, was a procession crossing about 20km from Athens to Eleusis, and the festival lasting 9 days. But I would agree that by KAP, many of these traditions would no longer exist. But I could still see devotees of Epona coming from all over Britain to celebrate at the White Horse, during that adventure.

Didn't Mists of Avalon do exactly this, or close enough?

Yep. Aging and Childbirth are both in Winter Phase, at the end of the year*, and that is the convention we used. We had a long discussion about that too. * Sure you can argue that the end of the Winter Phase is actually already towards March, but even in that case, the traditional start of the year was March 25th for most of the Middle Ages. Conversely, you could argue that Julius Caesar's Jan 1st was not overturned until the Council of Tours 567, so after GPC's Battle of Camlann. But I find it personally more pleasing to have the Winter at the end of the year, and then start a new year and new adventures once the Winter Phase closes the chapter on the previous year.

There is the Adventure of the White Horse which includes (a bit of ) the Goddess Epona. Alternatively, you could send him to Aquae Sulis (i.e. Bath) to drink from the holy spring there. Given the context and the location (I am assuming Salisbury here), it is unlikely that there would be big pagan processions and pilgrimages. Instead, remnants of pagan rituals in the form of harvest festivals would seem more appropriate to me, IMHO.

Which I intensely dislike and do not use in my campaign. See the previous messages in this thread for the reasons. Of course, the NPCs would react based on their personalities whatever the roll is, but the reaction could be bad even when the APP roll is a critical. Thus, Very High APP (20+) becomes a bit more dangerous for the ladies. A dishonorable, evil NPK would be smitten by the Lady, but not in a good way, on a critical. I could see Selfish and Proud being more about 'I have the most beautiful lady in my castle', while Lustful would be more carnal in (eventual) intent, although I think storywise, the heroes ought to arrive to save the lady from the fate worse than death, as it is often called. All the more so since these APP rolls would be made by players for their characters, and I am not putting a player character through that without some serious talking beforehand. Also, Selfish could easily be about wishing to marry an heiress so that he can get her lands, too. However, I would see a Fumble meaning that perhaps the Lady reminds the villain of another beautiful lady who scorned him or betrayed him... and thus, it is Hate, not Covetiousness, that motivates him, even though this could still lead to an attempted kidnapping and imprisonment, if it fits the story. However, I think the big determinant here is Honor. If the knight has high Honor (16+), he definitely wouldn't be jumping the PC Lady to rape her, even if she critted APP and he had Lustful 16+. (If the Honor was less than 16, I might be tempted to roll and see just how far he is willing to go, although taking into account other traits, especially Just and Merciful.) He would try to seduce her, sure, and maybe pine for her and make things a bit embarrassing with his love songs and maybe even, if she is unmarried, getting into duels with other would-be suitors. But generally, a critical APP roll should be a good thing. I would keep it more generic rather than looking only at a single highest Trait, and let the player knights have input on what kind of help they are seeking. If the PKs are needing more military muscle, the Lord with Hospitality 18 and Valorous 16 wouldn't be demurring that all he can do is offer hospitality. He should be more flexible than that. If his own Valor is lacking, he might offer some of his own household knights to go instead, or something. Note that in the non-villainous case, not even a Fumble would definitely lead to a life-or-death situation. After all, these would be 5% of the encounters, and it would get pretty silly if 5% of all the knights you meet 'on-camera' are trying to kidnap or to kill you. Naturally, I would not be asking these APP rolls all the time. Just when there is a need to quickly check how does this knight or another character react to the player character, usually within the adventure, or when the player is asking if he or she can try to interact with a certain NPC. And sometimes, these results could be fixed. For instance, if I already decided as the GM that the Villainous Lord's only daughter will fall in love with the highest APP player-knight (or the highest APP unmarried PK, to ensure the potential for a happy ending, since I am a sap like that), that will happen without a roll. But if the player is asking if his knight can sweet talk a lady-in-waiting tending his wounds into taking a message to his squire who was left outside the castle or something, that is where the APP roll would become useful, and with a Critical (or Friendly + successful Flirting/Romance), she might be willing to actually help him escape. All of this actually reminds me of a Hal Foster's Prince Valiant story centered on Gawaine, where the worthy knight was imprisoned and he used Singing to get the attention of the Lord's rather plain sister with love songs, and ended up seducing her so that she would help him escape. However, he was left with a problem of how to deal with her afterwards, since it would be churlish of him not to go ahead with a marriage after having promised (or at least heavily implied, 'once we are free, we can get married' -kinda way) to do that. Luckily for him, he came up with a solution for that, too...

Sure, but I would say that the attempt to abduct the Lady PC would not be done by your random NPC, but Sir Villainous.Thus, if the NPC is the kind of guy who would kidnap a woman, a critical towards him would make him too friendly, triggering the kidnapping attempt. I think I prefer this option, since it is clear that the very high APP ladies get kidnapped more often than average looking ones in the stories. (Or maybe we only get those stories since the very high APP ladies and the knights rescuing them are the ones that the stories get told about...) You could, also, interpret the Fumble as arousing that kind of jealous possessiveness and a kidnapping of the Beautiful character, since it is a hostile act. It is not as if the kidnapper has her best in mind. (Note that in our houserules, you can fumble with 20+ still, by rolling a 1.) But I prefer the first option, above. Also, for NPCs who would see such a beauty as vanity, you could flip the scale. You need to fail in APP for them to become friendly. Or they might have a fixed reaction and ignore APP altogether. Not all NPCs need to react alike.

Just to resurrect this thread a bit rather than post in the example thread... I was just pondering about different systems and one system I really like (apart from KAP) is GURPS. Now, one thing that GURPS (and many other systems) does is that Appearance modifies the Reaction Rolls. So basically, each time you try to interact with an NPC, the GM rolls to see what the initial reaction is. And then you can try to use your social skills (which in GURPS also benefit from high Appearance and vice versa) to improve the reaction you got, if it wasn't good enough. Now, this type of two tiered system is obviously more complicated than simply giving the APP/2 default for social skills that I am still in favor of. I am breaking the APP roll down also by the value of the roll, so that you could have greater/lesser successes/failures, in addition to the fumbles and criticals. So six levels (actually five, since Neutral is there twice) instead of four, and this also penalizes APP less than 10 more and gives a bit of an extra kick on APP 11+. APP Roll: Reaction on Success / Failure Fumble: can't be a success / Hostile 1-10: Neutral / Unfriendly 11-20: Friendly / Neutral Critical: Very Friendly / can't be a failure (Yes, this is deliberately built so that if you have APP 10, your success is equal to your failure, simply a neutral reaction based on your fully average APP. You can still fumble or crit, though.) Meaning of the Reaction Hostile: The NPC has a strong dislike on the character. If the NPC can hamper the character, they will. Knights might act belligerent, actively seeking to provoke a duel (although not to the death, they are not that suicidal), which might trigger a skill/trait/passion roll. This reaction should be noted down, as it is unlikely to change easily (requires a critical skill/trait/passion success). Unfriendly: The NPC dislikes the character and is uninterested in helping or even interacting with them. Indeed, pestering him (failed skill/trait roll) might provoke an even worse reaction, while a successful skill/trait use might alleviate their dislike. Depending on the character's actions, it could just have been a bad day for the NPC (new APP roll may be attempted later on), or they may have cemented the bad impression and it takes more to shift the NPC's opinion on them, in which case it should be noted down. Neutral: The NPC doesn't really care one way or another. If the character wants help, a successful skill roll (or bribery) is needed. However, failed roll may cause a worse reaction. If it is the NPC's job to help the character, he eventually would, but there could be a delay. Friendly: The NPC is willing to be helpful, although likely not at a significant cost to themselves. Successful skill roll might get them to do more, while a failed one would just cause them to express regret that they can't do more. Very Friendly: The NPC is taken in by the character's charm, and is trying to be as helpful as they reasonably can be. With a member of the opposite sex, this might lead to a romance. NPKs might volunteer to join the quest, simply for a share of the glory and spoils. Getting them to go against their own advantage or principles might require a trait/passion opposed contest. Example: Getting a lady to help a captured knight to escape her husband/father might require rolling her Lustful against Love Family or Honor, if she seeks to elope, or even Just or Honor vs. Love Family if her father has captured a noble knight by foul means and she seeks to correct that injustice. Note: Members of the lower order (commoners) rarely have the clout to express their dislike of the player character openly. Instead, they would be playacting stupid, or in the case of Hostile one, even actively lying to try and get the player character in trouble like giving wrong instructions on how to get to the next village and guiding them to some local monster instead, or claiming that there are no bandits in these parts. Skill/Trait/Passion use: Generally, I'd see successful skills adding +1 level to the reactions with criticals giving +2. Failures are generally +-0 (already a good reaction) or -1 (neutral or bad). A Fumble would worsen the reaction by one more, as it is taken as an insult. So for instance, if you get a Friendly reaction from a Lady, you can then use Flirting or Romance to try to push it up to Very Friendly, possibly starting an affair or enlisting her help.

You might be interested in checking out this thread, if you haven't already:

That is the consensus, yes.

Not a problem, really. We already know what the average PKs look at 21 in 5th edition, with around 15 years of playtesting using GPC. We can simply use that as our touchstone. For instance, the average NPK has a statline of 14/10/14/14/10. So that is something I would like the PKs have as well, at minimum. Yes, I know this is the ordinary knight, not the young knight, whose stats are worse, but I would like to make the PKs at least a bit more capable as a default. They are supposed to be the heroes of their story, after all. Random roll is even easier, since you don't have to do any stat balancing there. The rolls are random, not assigned, so you are just relaying on luck and simply have to set the variance you want to have (1d6, 2d6 or 3d6?), and where you want the average to end up.

KAP 4, p. 156; "... the Double Feint tactic, which requires a DEX roll. Normal modifiers for encumbrance and footing apply."' KAP 4, p.165: "... attempt a DEX roll, as modified by armor, load carried, footing, etc." Emphasis mine. YPWV, just wanted to quote the chapter and verse. Also, in 4th Edition, wearing armor DOES give you effectively -5 skill, since fighting unarmored gives you +5 to skill if you are used to fighting in armor (knights, but I would argue the sergeants as well). The knights' recorded weapon skills are effectively 'in armor' with a -5 already included. KAP 4, p.162: "Unencumbered: Knights not wearing armor, and carrying items no heavier than a weapon and a shield, gain a combat modifier of +5." I am happy to see that rule gone.

Nope. KAP 5.2, p.138: "He must now make a DEX roll, if on foot, or a Horsemanship roll if mounted." But yeah, it was changed for 5th edition, probably to give Horsemanship something to do since it was otherwise very little utilised. KAP 4, p. 157: "When unbalanced, the knight must receive a successful DEX roll, whether on foot or mounted." We ended up houseruling that while mounted, you roll (Horsemanship+DEX)/2, since we wanted to keep DEX in there, too. But even if this rule were to be changed back to just DEX roll on horseback as well (and I am not sure if that is a good thing; inexperienced horsemen should have more trouble staying in saddle; Horsemanship or DEX, whichever is lower, would be an option, though), I still don't think that it would make DEX strong enough vs. SIZ, since high SIZ is still the best way to avoid even having to roll Knockdown. Dunno. One of my big issues with Double Feint is that in ALL other cases, the way you control your Sword is your Sword Skill. But suddenly, a master swordsman has harder times getting through the gaps and joints in armor than a pickpocketing streetrat? Also, how do you go for the gaps with something like a flail? So I wasn't particularly sad to see it go, and I do see Greg's point that with typical DEX values (10-14) modified with -10 due to armor, Double Feint makes no sense and just makes unarmored combat more and more attractive (especially with the old rule adding +5 to skill, too), and this is very counter to the reality and the knightly mythos. I do see how this acerbated the problem of DEX having even less to do, but as pointed above, you really needed a very high DEX in order to be able to use it effectively. I don't think any of our knights used it, when we were still playing 4th edition. And as you agree, even with the Double Feint in the books, maxing out your SIZ remains a better option. Hence the need to come up with ways to give DEX more relevancy. There was an alternative option being expressed which was that rather than try to balance the stats by their usefulness, balance instead their COSTS. This is something we tried out in our Middle-earth campaign (in part), by making SIZ cost 2 points while other stats were just 1 point. What ended up happening was that the players usually didn't max out their SIZ (unless they wanted to play a hulking giant of a man, which one player did... I think he ended up with SIZ 24 or so with Glory bonus points). This was because SIZ was so expensive and buying STR and CON instead seemed like a better deal: a few points of SIZ and then STR & CON. Now, we didn't do it (yet), but lowering DEX and APP to 0.5 points might work nicely, BUT... you still need to give them something to do, especially APP. In our Middle-earth campaign, we did use the DEX/2 and APP/2 defaults for some skills, which did encourage the courtier to get his APP to 20. Also, we gave APP Glory for skill use, instead of a flat 10 Glory.

Yes. Those countryside Romans would be manorial. I was focusing more on the City homelands and the urban aspect of the same.

Maybe not Lancelot nor Galahad, both of whom are so perfect as to not fail, but the other named RTKs, sure, like Gawaine, Lamorak, Palomides, Bors, etc... But yeah, fully agreed on the high-powered start sidebar would be desirable. I am pretty sure I wrote something on Nocturnal Forum about how to make this happen. I think I was saying something like +10 stat points and 10 extra yearly trainings (double both if they are like Gareth level 'I duelled Lancelot to a stand-still at 18'), and then do Experience checks and Glory at the end of each adventure, potentially running several adventures per year, if you want to get that Glory rocketing upwards in a couple of years.

How? The Knockdown roll when you are on horseback is Horsemanship, not DEX. Also, as has been pointed out, Double Feint doesn't exist in KAP5. I can understand why someone who halves the enemy's armor 70% of the time would be pretty puissant, but on the other hand, a character who does 7d6 damage all the time (SIZ 24, likely +2d6 or even +3d6 over the DEX guy) would be pretty tough cookie, too. And arguably, even harder to knockdown (on foot or on a horse) than a DEX 24 guy.

Yeah, obviously not. It doesn't change from the fact that the system has been designed for playing knights, not pickpocketing, lockpicking thieves navigating the underworld. Since it is designed with knights in mind, that is where the focus is and where the game works best. And it also shows where the game struggles, such as playing a lady character, especially outside the rules themselves. All the adventures are with knights in mind, and usually male ones at that. It is reasonable, given the focus and the setting, but it does mean that any Lady PC will have a rougher time of it, and so does the GM. EDIT: If anything, giving DEX and APP something more (skill defaults) will help Ladies by actually making it worthwhile to be beautiful and dexterous. (Although I admit that I would still like to see a lover's solo minigame from the Lady's perspective, and I would imagine her APP would play a big role there, too.) Not significantly. Their courtly activities are determined by their SKILLS, not by their DEX nor even APP. DEX only becomes important when something significantly outside of the norm happens, like the previously mentioned tree-climbing to retrieve a bird. And even then, DEX 9 likely succeeds in a couple of tries. Even if there is combat, DEX 9 guy likely has a higher weapon skill (since he has not been spending yearly trainings to get his DEX that high or to make up for lackluster STR) and thus will do better than DEX 18, whose DEX will be totally useless unless he is Dodging (which itself is much inferior to fighting Defensively, as the rules stand now).

No, they weren't. But they also weren't stunted, feeble folk with -3 SIZ and -3 STR, either. In fact, the Romans compare them with the Germanic barbarians, having red hair and large limbs. So if anything, it would be more just, historically, to make them have bonuses in SIZ and STR. Given that Romans tended to lump everyone north of the Hadrian's Wall into the same 'Painted People' basket, and we have clearly Cymric people living in between the Antonine and Hadrian's walls, and that the Irish didn't seem to have much of a distinction between themselves and the Picts, itwould also be quite fair to treat them as simply Cymric. However, in KAP, we have the tattooed, stunted people, so that is what we are left with. For those who do not consider the Picts a threat, that is because they are not a big threat, in one-on-one against a mounted, armored knight. But start doing 3-to-1 odds night-time attacks while most of the knights are asleep (and possibly unarmored, although not after the first attack), rolling DEX vs. Awareness to see if they can sneak up on the guard(s), and I guarantee you that the PKs will HATE campaigning in Pictish Highlands. Also, the standard tactic of the Picts should be to kill the horse first and then gang up on the knight. KAP can be USED for more, yes. But as Greg said in his mission statement ( https://web.archive.org/web/20190213023040/http://www.gspendragon.com/genreandgeneric.html ), KAP is about knights. That is what it is geared towards, what its focus is. If you want to play thieves and monks and sorcerers and Pictish cattle-rustlers, you can. But if you are playing the vanilla KAP and GPC, then you are going to be playing a KNIGHT, regardless whether your parents were Picts, Saxons, Cymri, Romans or any other nationality. Or to put it in another way, if you are playing a Pictish Campaign from Beyond the Wall, playing Pictish cattle-rustlers stealing the other tribes cattle and vice versa and never even hear about King Arthur and his knights, you might be using KAP SYSTEM, but you are not playing a KAP Campaign, as such. To me, KAP is focused around Arthur and the Round table, in the Arthurian mythos. I am using KAP rules to GM a campaign in Middle-earth. I am not claiming that it is a KAP campaign, if you get what I am driving at.

Taking this topic to a new thread, here:

I thought it was a better idea to pull this discussion into its own thread. Originally talked here: The Romans (actually representing Romanized Britons) are another oddity trying to marry the (Post-)Roman Britain with the Norman England that the rest of the society is based on (see BotW and BoU). Historically, by mid-5th century the old Roman towns were largely abandoned ruins, even Londinium. By the time we get to Norman England, the character of the towns is quite different. In short, while you had villas and such during Roman times, the local town or city was still the center of administration and politics. The rich man might live in his own villa and gain his income from the lands surrounding it, but the business, the justice and the public discourse were still handled in the city. The villa and the city were interlinked. The rich man was participating in the local elections and likely holding offices in the city, and acted as a benefactor to the public buildings in the city: renovating them, supporting their functions or even building new ones. By contrast, during the medieval times, the towns are no longer in the same 'chain-of-command'. The landed knight is connected to his liege, who is living in his castle. The justice is handled in manorial and hundred courts, or kicked up to county courts and finally to the royal justice, if need be. None of this is connected with the local town, which became self-governing (admittedly, not straight from the Norman Conquest). Sure, the local town is a major market, its craftsmen producing items and needing food and materials. But its offices would be filled primarily by commoner townsfolks, merchants and master artisans. Occasionally knights were elected as well, especially in London, which makes sense as it was the largest and most important city in the kingdom. But they didn't need to be local knights nor had they any feudal relationship with the city. In BoU, the 8 cities (civitates) of Logres are explicitly said to have charters and governed by "a town council of senators, led by a mayor". A royal sheriff is appointed by the King. In BoK&L, the Romans are explicitly Urban, living in the city, and their society is explained as: "Urban society has a city council that rules by long-established tradition, based on Roman principles (though often without having retained Roman identification). The rich run things, and the commoners work. The plutocracy coordinates the many various power groups of the city; these leaders are the burghers of the city, the wealthy owners of land and businesses. The council oversees the interests of the guilds, markets, and trading companies (as sources of income), and, of course, defense." (There are actually different levels of Urban in BoK&L, with some Cymric towns getting an Urban designation as well, but I'll continue with the general one now.) Importantly, BoK&L also establishes these 'classes': "Equites: An Equites is a Roman nobleman who has taken up the profession of knightly arms. The “liege lord” is really the family itself. The old aristocratic families have a duty to defend the realm and to provide military leadership. Thus, from among them come the proud equites (knights) of a family." "Equites of Aristocrat Family: The aristocrats of the city are the wealthy urban elite. They are the plutocrats, the owners of industry, keepers of trade, and leaders of the city council." "Freeholding Equites: All cities own the lands surrounding them, and those lands are owned by the “lieges,” who are the aristocratic families. So the “liege lord” is really the family, once again. The “freeholders” owe their allegiance only to themselves and the city, without a formal feudal- type of oath." (emphasis mine) I strongly dissent here that the "liege lord" is your family if you are equites. Instead, it should be your city, as indicated by the Roman Passions: "Loyalty (city) 1d6+10". (I ignore Loyalty Emperor in British context. It has been 75 years, three generations, by 485 since the Roman Emperor said to look after your own defenses, nor would the Kings of Logres allowed a major part of the economy of their kingdom to be beholden to a foreign emperor. It could still be valid for some parts of the continent, since we know that technically, the Western Roman Empire still exists or is resurrected in KAP universe for Arthur to have a war with.) In 4th Edition, we see London listed as one of the homelands, with the following summary (emphasis mine): "London, Culture/Religion: Roman/Christian, Ruler: City Council, Vassal of: Pendragon, Army: 70 knights, 1000 soldiers" So based on all of the above, here are my conclusions (i.e. how I intend to GM this, YPWV): The Roman knights (equites) from the City homelands can be divided into two subcategories: urban and manorial (or freeholding, as BoK&L states). The urban equites get their wealth mainly from commerce & industry (workshops) and live in the city itself. The manorial/freeholding equites live in the villas surrounding the cities, much like their Cymric cousins do. Both types of equites participate in the city life and contribute to the city council, although perhaps not every eques has a seat in the council (indeed, I could easily see a tradition of the older knight relinquishing his military role to his adult son, but retain the council seat until death, since his experience and auctoritas would be more important in a council setting than on the battlefield). The elected mayor (I'd prefer a more Roman title here like praetor) acts as the executive. The oaths of allegiance (homage) are sworn to the city itself, not a particular personage, but it is the city council who rules and the mayor who executes those orders. (Yes, this does mean that there are these odd pools of Roman antiquity in our otherwise Norman England society, but when one is given a Frankenstein's Monster, it is time to hook up some electrodes and run up the lighting rod!)

The landed knights would have manors in the countryside around the city, yes.

Very good suggestions in above. Court Jester is actually one of my favorite movies of all time, and I am totally agreeing with Jeff about A Knight's Tale capturing the tournament atmosphere. I might also add Merlin (1998), the three-part TV miniseries starring Sam Neill in the title role. Sure, it takes some liberties with the storyline, but I enjoyed it nonetheless. While not Arthurian, I would also suggest Lion in Winter, both the 1968 and 2003 versions. (The former is more theatrical and bigger budget, also shorter.) Sure, the family dynamic there is not quite Arthurian, even though Henry II and Eleanor of Aquitaine are often contrasted with Arthur and Guinever. Besides, they are simply very good, entertaining movies. The War Lord (1966) is good for a more gritty take, suited for Uther and Anarchy Periods. Speaking of Charlton Heston, El Cid (1961) is very good, too. If we expand to books, I would suggest the Dragon Knight series ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dragon_Knight ). It is somewhat higher on magic, set on alternative 14th century England where magic and dragons exist, but the books are very entertaining to read. The main character (Jim Eckert), who is a modern man from USA now living in this word, occasionally bumps into different cultural assumptions of his medieval friends, which gives some insight on how a KAP knight might view things. (Alas, it also has medieval machinegun longbow in the form of a Master Bowman Davydd ap Hywel of Wales, but what can you do.) I am seriously thinking about adapting some of those stories into Pendragon adventures for our campaign. Also, in one of the books, they actually meet King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table.

Just to point out a couple of other things... In KAP, the cultures do not just modify your skills, but they modify your attributes and traits, too. Granted, the traits are more accurately modified by your homeland, as we have discussed on the Forum before. A Roman character born and raised in Salisbury would use Salisbury traits, not generic Roman traits. The point is, there is more to culture than a couple of skill points' difference in X. EDIT: Also, let me repeat that while I don't think it is strictly necessary, I would very easily see the cultures modifying the skill defaults, which I would prefer over flat culture-based starting skills that bypass the defaults completely. See my comments on the example character builds in this thread why flat skills (i.e. pick a skill at 10) are not as good with this system than skills that builds on the default (i.e. add 5 to a skill).

No need. The whole question of Latin Rights and Roman citizenship becomes immaterial after the Edict of Caracalla, since all free men became Roman citizens, enjoying the same rights. In any case, the question is more about culture than the citizenship status. A freedman (ex-slave) who has spent his whole adult life in Roman culture would be 'Roman' in our cultural definition, even though he wouldn't have been a citizen (I'd have to check if there would be this 2nd class status after the Edict, but like said, it doesn't matter). By 5th century, you have Romanized populations that would be KAP Roman culture and the others who would not be. In KAP, most of Gaul would still be Roman until late-5th century and probably for a generation after the fall of Soissons. It would be only towards Middle Phase (Conquest, etc) onwards that you would shift from the Romans and the Franks to their melange, the French, IMHO. EDIT: That being said... I'd be happy enough to give the Franks the same attributes as the French, for simplicity. But in 485, they'd still be majority pagans, since Clovis doesn't covert until later. But this is something to think about later.

I am going to need a reference and a timeframe for that. What are the 10 client states and when? Province defense? This implies more Imperial times, when Romans were more about defending than expanding. In Republican times, the legions tended to be raised for each campaign as needed and disbanded afterwards. Romans raised way more than 4+10 legions for the Second Punic War, and during the unpleasantness in the Late Republic (after Italian Socii were already citizens, too).

This is correct, although to clarify: Greg made very clear for BoSi and which is reflected in the Story of the Romans there: Pendragon Romans (in Britain) are not ITALIAN. Instead, they are Romanized Britons, Romano-Brits. They represent the urbanized Romano-British culture. That being said, the Roman characters are not civilian administrators. They are knights, and have been for a couple of generations. They are not intended to become law clerks or something like that.